Federal Ammunition has launched what it is calling a groundbreaking long-action hunting cartridge that raises the bar for what a non-magnum, center-fire rifle hunting load can achieve. The patented Peak Alloy one-piece, high-strength case boosts the new Federal-designed 7 mm Backcountry cartridge, which provides magnum performance in a standard bolt-face rifle. Through 20” barrels and with 170-gr. bullets, it can achieve 3,000 feet per second.
“Welcome to the future of rifle cartridges,” said Jesse Whiteside, Federal’s vice president of product management and R&D. “When it comes to innovation in rifle ammunition, as an industry, we have reached a point of diminishing returns with brass cased ammunition." With modern magnums, for example, said Whiteside, it may take 30 percent more propellant to increase velocity by 10 percent. "With our new 7mm Backcountry cartridge, featuring Peak Alloy case technology, those rules are re-written," he said, noting they can achieve that same 10 percent velocity increase with less propellant than current magnums and do so out of shorter barrels with less felt recoil. Unlike conventional magnums, he said, 7 mm Backcountry utilizes a standard bolt face which allows for an additional round in the magazine of most hunting rifles. “We expect factory gun offerings with barrels as short as 16” that match or outperform today’s current offerings with much longer barrels," he said, adding that this new technology allows hunters and shooters to shoot a barrel with a suppressor on it that is essentially the same length of a barrel without a suppressor on it, in a conventional round today.
Federal’s director of centerfire rifle ammunition, Mike Holm, said that hunters are trending toward using shorter-barrel rifles with suppressors. “They want a suppressed rifle with a shorter barrel to make it more manageable while on the hunt, but they also want to retain velocities in that 3,000 f.p.s. range for flat-shooting performance,” he said. “At launch, we are loading our new cartridge with some of the industry's best all-range and long-range projectiles to fully exploit its velocity, energy, range, and trajectory advantages.”
The five initial loads of 7 mm Backcountry are 155- and 170-gr. Federal Premium Terminal Ascent; 195-gr. Federal Premium Berger Elite Hunter; 168-gr. Federal Premium Barnes LRX Copper; and 175-gr. Federal Fusion Tipped, according to Eric Miller, Federal’s centerfire rifle ammunition product line manager. “These flat-shooting, heavy-for-caliber bullets offer the optimal range of options between sleekness and energy, touting high ballistic coefficients,” he said.
Federal Ammunition has engaged with many major gun companies while developing 7 mm Backcountry, which are working on multiple rifle models chambered for the new cartridge. For more information, visit federalpremium.com.
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